Thursday, June 16, 2011

Do you have more confidence in yourself or your government?

Over the last days, I’ve endeavored to explain why the economic reversal of fortune in the west is unstoppable… and what the social implications of this decline will be.

Economic decay and social upheaval are inextricably linked. This is not some doom and gloom conjecture, but rather simple historical reality: when you take away people’s livelihoods and their abilities to put food on the table for their families, turmoil reigns.

Consider Argentina during its millennium economic crisis… Zimbabwe during its hyperinflationary period… Japan during its lost 2-decades… Germany in the interwar period… Rome during the reign of Tiberius… Russia after the fall of communism…

There is a common element in each of these examples– even just a few years before the economic turmoil began, nobody would have expected it.

If you had told an Argentine in the mid 1990s that he would be digging for food out of a trash dumpster in a few years, he would have been insulted. If you had told a Japanese businessman in 1984 that he would spend the next decades floundering in stagnation, he would have thought you were crazy.

What would you have said in 1995 if someone told you that government agents would fondle children at airports while stagflation takes over the economy and the government borrows money just to pay interest on the money it has already borrowed?

America’s balance sheet is deteriorating by the hour, and lenders will require a higher return to compensate them for this additional risk. Consequently, government borrowing costs will rise, making the situation even more precarious.

The increased interest expense will cause them to borrow even more money and go deeper into debt until one of two things happens: either the Federal Reserve debases the currency to its intrinsic value, or the US government defaults.

Either case is catastrophic. If the US defaults on its debt, it would set off a chain reaction of derivatives that would bankrupt the entire financial system. If the Fed debases the currency, Americans will be left holding worthless dollars that can’t even be used as toilet paper.

Meanwhile, you can expect the government to declare war on its citizens, raising taxes to feudal serf levels in order to pay for their largess, and imposing police state conditions to keep everyone in check.

So– what is one to do about this? There are a few options.

1) Do nothing. You can always stick your head in the sand and have faith that your ‘leaders’ are going to work out the problems, because, hey, collapse could never happen here… right? This option obviously worked out well for the Argentines, the Japanese, the Germans, the Romans, etc. who thought the same thing.

2) “Stay and fight”. This is a nonsense solution. There is no enemy to fight… these issues were not caused by a single person but by the very institution of government. People who talk about political solutions have no understanding of the problems– try getting 155 people to agree on specifics. Now try 155 million.

3) Have a plan, and take steps to prepare. As its fiscal desperation increases, your government is likely going to shake you down for everything you’re worth.

Here’s the bottom line: if you live, work, invest, bank, own property, structure your business, own gold, hold retirement funds, etc. in the same country of your citizenship, you literally have all of your eggs in one very frail basket.

Moreover, the basic systems that you depend on to support your family are going to come under intense pressure and will be prone to failure. Default and inflation are going to make it very difficult to truck food and fuel across the country to your local grocery store and gas station.

It’s imperative to reduce these system dependencies, as well as diversify your assets and livelihood across different geographies. I call this planting multiple flags, and ultimately, this is what our premium service Sovereign Man: Confidential is all about (the June edition comes out this evening).

It’s also why we held our first (and only) offshore workshop a few months ago in Panama. About 350 attendees joined me along with over 2 dozen of my best contacts– international bankers, immigration experts, asset protection attorneys, incorporation specialists, investment experts, startup business gurus, etc.

Unlike most conferences which leave you with more questions than answers, our workshop strived to provide the means to develop a clear action plan for reducing dependencies, building independent income, and safeguarding your livelihood… plus all the contacts, forms, and information necessary to take immediate action.

We filmed the entire event and put together a comprehensive “stay at home” package. It includes a 200-page workbook and over 21-hours of professional footage on 12 DVDs. We also produced a short trailer to explain more, you can view it here.

Honestly, most people that you and I know are going to go with option 1– they’ll place their faith in politicians and do absolutely nothing for themselves. Lambs to the slaughter.

My guess is that you’re reading this because you sense something very wrong with the world… and you have much more confidence in yourself than some politician. I hope I’m right.

No comments:

Post a Comment